First, I chose the word "objectively" in the sense that win/wins are still possible in consumeristic markets. I think most businesses would have taken a flexible $100k USD and spent it on marketing or expansion or something. The fact that this was distributed freely to people who self-identified as having use of it is good.
Second, flawed/unfair/biased/imperfect does not mean that something can't have net gains. Just because a company recognizes and discloses their faults, that shouldn't dismiss them from credibility. I'd rather a service that promises 99.5% availability than no service at all (or worse, a service that doesn't disclose their reliability).
Third, I think that the public, publicized, monetary actions of a trendy business have an additional non-material benefit. On top of any fiscal commentary about this bit, CAH is quite popular, and they have enough financial leeway to make a statement. This statements is "we are a business. we have knowledge that some of our customers have a greater need than others. we are making a decision to help those people with greater need".
Their statement is no more prescriptive than that. But damn if it doesn't make me question every other wildly profitable business, including the corp I work for.
